Love Can Blossom
Anywhere, Even in
A Maternity Ward
It was a dramatic moment
– a medical
emergency
– at the
hospital’s
ER when
a woman
arrived in
labor with a
prolapsed
umbilical cord, but two
physicians on the scene
saved the day . . . and then
fell in love.

True-life fairly tale on
page 3.

Outgoing President
Of ACOG Offers An
Objective Look Back
After a year of serving as
leader of the American
College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists, Dr. Lisa M.
Hollier reﬂects on the state
of women’s health.

The role of a nurse has expanded and
evolved. Today, nurses must undergo more
intense, formal education than in years past and,
in addition, are expected to take on more patient
responsibility.
At the same time, nurses are more specialized
than ever – having more advancement opportunities in the medical field due to the number of
specialties that have emerged to meet the growing
demand for healthcare.
“I’ve always heard that a nurse is a nurse,”
said Wendy M. Likes, PhD, dean of the College
of Nursing at University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC).
She was one of four advanced practice registered nurses from the Memphis area who participated in a roundtable discussion concerning
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 10)

Light at the End of the Tunnel?
Opioid Pilot Program Tackles Problem of Addiction, Overdoses
By LAWRENCE BUSER

After all their long nights,
stressful days and hard work,
when healthcare students
finally earn their degree,
in most cases they also
get a heavy financial load
along with the diploma.
The search is on for ways to
lighten that load.

The numbers are staggering.
On average, 115 people die every day nationwide from overdoses of opioids. In Shelby County, 159 people died from opioids
in 2017, up from just 51 in 2011, according to the Shelby County
Health Department.
By next year, the total locally could exceed 250 such deaths
annually. More people are dying from opioid overdoses than from
car accidents. Last year, 854 patients showed up at Memphis-area
hospitals presenting signs of opioid overdoses.
Last year, in conjunction with the Tennessee Hospital Association (THA), Regional One Health (ROH) and other hospitals
across the state began a pilot program called Opioid Light to cut
back on the number of opioid prescriptions being issued from

A Match Made in the Maternity Ward
MOGA Evolved After These Two Doctors Handled an Emergency

By LAWRENCE BUSER

Doctors play a significant role in the
lives of their patients with every visit, every
surgical procedure, every diagnosis and
every treatment plan.
Doctor and patient hope for a positive outcome, and when that is achieved
it’s moving on with life; moving on to
another patient’s care. But more often
than anyone likely realizes, patients can
play a significant, lasting role in the lives
of the doctors who care for them – or who
unwittingly play matchmaker in a time of
crisis and high drama.
“It was 1991 and I was a brand-new
intern for overnight calls in the OB service at The Med, and during the night a
patient arrived by ambulance in what was
one of those true medical emergencies,
like one you might see on a TV show,”
Dr. Aric Giddens recalled. “The patient
was in labor and there was an umbilical
cord prolapse, and this third-year resident
looked at me and said ‘Go scrub.’ I told
her OK, though I’d never done a C-section. It was a very dramatic moment.
“We verified that the baby was alive,
and then this resident did an incredibly fast C-section. I was very impressed
because everyone else was running around
and yet she was very calm and collected. I
thought, ‘That’s how you do it. That’s the
kind of doctor I want to be.’ Anyway, we

A Happy Reunion
Seven years after obstetrics
residents Andrea and Aric Giddens
met, fell in love and got married
after teaming up for an emergency
C-section in 1991, that same patient
walked into MOGA for OB care, only
this time not in such distress.
The patient relayed the story of
her emergency C-section delivery
of her first baby at The Med and
indicated she wanted to have a
natural delivery with no drama.
So Dr. Andrea got the patient’s
medical records, stared hard at them
and then handed them to Dr. Aric
and said, “Look at this.”
It was the same patient.
“The lady had no idea who
delivered her first baby because the
residents’ names were not recorded
on the birth certificates; only the
staff doctor’s was,” said Dr. Aric. “So
we told the patient, ‘Hey, we’ve got
a good story for you.’ She was really
amazed, she delivered again and
she’s been our patient ever since. In
2016 we even got to see her son we
had delivered 25 years earlier.”

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.com

Dr. Aric Giddens

started talking, we started dating and we
got married.”
And that’s how Dr. Aric Gus Giddens
and Dr. Mary Andrea Giddens became
life partners and partners at Memphis
Obstetrics & Gynecological Association
(MOGA). Thanks to a very pregnant
woman in distress. (They also now have
three children of their own.)
“I’m from Cochran, Georgia, and I
was always interested in science,” he said.
“My parents ran a small business, and I
knew I didn’t want to do that because it
was too much work. I was always a good
student, and I thought maybe I’ll just be a
doctor because no one in our family had
done that. It was just totally blind, really.
I didn’t have any close friends who were
doctors, and I barely knew any doctors.
“I knew I wanted to do something
professional and be successful. My parents
always said, ‘You can do this. Whatever
you want to do, just do your best and be
successful.’ Emory was very hard and I
was from a small public high school, but I
was very determined and I was not going
to bail out. I decided if I chose to do something else, it would be my choice and not
someone else’s.”
He got through Emory undergrad as
a biology major, got through Emory medical school and during clinical rotation
thought about going into hematology or
perhaps something with a surgical aspect.
“So I did an OB rotation and really
enjoyed that,” Dr. Giddens recalled. “You
had the positivity of participating in the
pregnancy and delivery, which is almost
always a good thing, and then from the
surgical side you got to fix things. Our
patients are generally pretty healthy and
on the younger side, versus internal medicine or surgery, and that really appealed
to me.

“So I wound up in Memphis at
UTHSC due to the (residency) match
and met my wife and that’s where we are
now.”
MOGA has four offices, with locations on Humphreys Boulevard in East
Memphis, Stage Road in Bartlett, Poplar
Avenue in Germantown and on Airways
in Southaven in DeSoto County, Mississippi. Dr. Giddens has been with MOGA
24 years, and things seem to have gotten
more challenging over time.
“It’s not just the practice of medicine now, it’s more the understanding of
the business aspect of it for which you
get zero training in medical school and
residency,” he said. “It’s kind of learn-onthe-job things. What’s become more and
more important is the payment model’s
shift toward value-based care and pay-forperformance versus pay-for-service type of
contracts with insurance companies and
government payers. That’s made it a lot
more difficult.”
But some areas of technology that
have been the bane of doctors’ offices
nationwide – such as electronic medical
records, standardized medical care and
virtual medical records – may be turning

the corner and showing actual benefits for
doctors and patients alike.
“I’m also president of the medical
staff at Baptist Memorial Hospital for
Women, and they’ve done a great job
using this technology and letting their
medical staff know that we can do this and
make it really easy to do the right thing,”
Dr. Giddens said.
“We have a standardized way of caring for certain things and giving alerts for
certain high-risk conditions based on certain parameters. That’s been a long time
coming.
“Also, we’re the only group in the
areas that’s gotten an award from Cigna
four years in a row for meeting their quality and cost metrics at providing value
care.”
He notes that patients today require
a higher degree of acuity because patients
present more issues such as diabetes,
hypertension, obesity and challenges associated with delaying the child-bearing
years. There also is a push in the practice to reduce the number of C-sections.
Another change is in the gender population of the OB-GYN doctors themselves.

(CONTINUED ON PAGE 15)

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>

3

Light at the End of the Tunnel? continued from page 1
emergency rooms, often the front line of
medical care in this overdose society.
“You do a physical exam – usually
unconscious with pinpoint pupils is one
sign – plus we get some background from
the family, from the EMTs or whoever
brought them in, and from police,” says
Dr. Chantay Smartt, an emergency medicine physician at ROH. “Since we started
this program in June of last year, we’ve
been able to reduce our opioid use by
about 20 percent, and for this institution
that’s big because we see a lot of burns
and trauma and we’re a major clinic for
sickle cell pain. We have a lot of patients
that other hospitals don’t.”
Dr. Smartt and emergency room
pharmacist Justin Griner, PharmD, agree
that Opioid Light is the way to go, to
reduce a patient’s exposure to opioids
whenever possible and to spread the word
throughout the hospital.
“We’ve tried different things, providing Naloxone for patients to take home
and reducing the number of opioids we
send patients home with prescriptions for
acute pain conditions,” Griner said. “The
Opioid Light is an initiative we’ve been
working with the THA on reducing the
opioids patients receive when they’re in
the emergency department in acute pain.
It doesn’t mean we’re not treating acute
pain, but we’re trying to use other nonaddictive agents when that’s appropriate.”
As the only Level 1 Trauma Center

Dr. Chantay Smartt and Justin Griner

within 150 miles, Regional One sees far
more than its share of critically injured
patients in severe pain, making the drive
to pull back on opioid use a difficult daily
decision.
“There are some conditions that
obviously you’re going to give opioids
for – major trauma, burns, sickle cell
patients, post-surgical pain – but we’re
trying to get the providers, the staff and
the patients themselves to be aware that
you can use an opioid, but you can also
use non-steroidal things like Ibuprofen
and Aleve,” said Dr. Smartt. “You can
use opioids for breakthrough pain, but
your main medication should be a Tylenol or Aleve or an Advil if your medical
condition requires it.
“Some patients – your end-stage
renal, severe diabetics and congestive
heart-failure patients – can’t take nonsteroidal medications, or if you’re allergic to them, but we’re trying to get other
patients and their families thinking that
there are other options that patients can
use for pain control that are non-addicting.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control published a study in 2017 noting that
the more opioids a patient is exposed to

for acute pain, the more likely that patient
will be using opioids a year later.
“That speaks partially to the addictive nature of opioids,” Griner said.
“Some manufacturers and even some
medical journals in the past have indicated that opioids weren’t addictive, but
obviously they are. I think that more and
more institutions and providers are going
to be moving toward the model of ‘if we
can treat you appropriately with a medication that is not an opioid, then that is
going to be our first choice.’”
With the use of opioids so ingrained
in the treatment of pain – there are more
opioid prescriptions than people in Tennessee – changing the mindset is like trying to turn around a battleship, yet there
are some positive signs.
“Actually it’s been surprising that
there has not been a lot of pushback,” said
Dr. Smartt. “Most of our patients appreciate being educated. Once you tell them
there’s a potential for addiction with this
particular class of drug, a lot of them will
say ‘then don’t give me that one.’ We do
have patients who are already addicted,
and for those we have places in the city
where we can refer them. We can’t force
them to go, however.

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“We’ve also just partnered with
an organization called Navigation, and
they send ‘navigators’ out to the hospitals. Most of them have recovered from
addictions so they can talk on a one-onone level with the patient about what it
is like to go through detox and that type
of thing.”
Under Opioid Light, ROH doctors
and pharmacists try to determine how
many opioid pills a patient might need –
or if they need them at all – and provide
the minimum with the short-range goal of
switching to less potent options.
The program includes an all-handson-deck Opioid Stewardship Committee that includes staff from chronic pain
specialists, internists, anesthesiologists,
general, orthopedic, plastic and trauma
surgeons, to pharmacists, in which data
is collected and literature reviewed in
the effort to decrease the use of opioids
if indicated, with the overall objective
being to providing better, safer care for
patients.
“Treatment of pain in some services
can be very challenging, but maybe they
can switch to fewer pills per day and/or
use other treatments like physical therapy
and nerve blocks,” Dr. Smartt added.
“It’s really been a collaborative effort.”
Griner said gathering and providing
data is a key element in the battle against
opioid addiction.
“Providing data is sometimes all that
it takes,” he said. “Once a certain provider sees that a peer is using 30 percent
fewer opioids to treat the same patients,
that may be all it takes to say, ‘Hey, I need
to explore some of these other options
and reduce my own opioid use.’ Data is a
big part of what we’re trying to do.
“Our overall reduction so far is 20
percent and we hope there is still room
for improvement, but with our trauma
population and our sickle cell population
we honestly don’t know. We’re playing
this by ear a little bit in seeing how far we
can go while still providing appropriate
care to our patients.”

disparities in maternal health outcomes,
and support for the Alliance for InnovaThe American College of Obstetrition on Maternal Health (AIM), a national
cians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has just
data-driven maternal safety and quality
wrapped the 2019 Annual Clinical and
improvement initiative to improve materScientific Meeting. Held in Nashville from
nal outcomes in the U.S.
May 3-6, the theme for this year’s national
ACOG has always supported access
gathering was “Accessing the Spectrum of
to affordable healthcare, and we will conQuality Care.”
tinue to oppose every
The conference
attempt to roll back
also sets the stage for
critical women’s health
leadership transition.
gains in the Affordable
ACOG President Lisa
Care Act, particularly
M. Hollier, MD, MPH,
for women with preexFACOG, welcomed
isting conditions. We
colleagues to the 67th
also continue to oppose
annual meeting before
efforts to deny access to
passing the gavel to
reproductive healthcare
2019-20 President Ted
and access to qualified
L. Anderson, MD, PhD,
providers through the
during the annual busiTitle X Family Planning
ness meeting.
Program. Title X is the
Hollier, now Immeonly federal program
diate Past President,
exclusively dedicated to
shared thoughts on the
providing low-income
Lisa M. Hollier
past year as she led the
patients with access to
organization of about 58,000 members.
family planning and preventive health
services and information.
Medical News: What were
Recent actions by the Administrasome of the key issues
tion to change Title X will limit access
addressed during the meeting
to vital healthcare services to low-income
and over the past year?
women, men, and adolescents. These
Dr. Hollier: This year’s meeting’s
actions restrict information that physitheme – Accessing the Spectrum of Qualcians can provide to their patients, weaken
ity Health Care – included an informasafeguards that ensure that Title X-funded
tion-packed program that addressed the
programs offer evidence-based contracepmost timely and challenging topics our
tion, and impose medically unnecessary
members face as ob-gyns. Healthcare
requirements on healthcare facilities that
access has been a key component of everywill exclude qualified providers from offerthing we’ve been working on during my
ing care to low-income women.
year as president, so having access as a
Last year, ACOG and other leading
focus of the meeting was vitally important.
medical groups actively opposed these
Access to quality healthcare is a key
proposed changes and submitted pubto ensuring the health of women. ACOG
lic comments to the U.S. Department of
is pursuing policy and legislative soluHealth and Human Services. On April 9,
tions to address the rising rate of maternal
2019, ACOG and leading medical groups
mortality and severe maternal morbidity
filed amicus briefs in several cases across
in the United States. This includes advothe country in support of states’ and orgacacy for Medicaid coverage for women
nizations’ motions for preliminary injuncup to a year postpartum, support for state
tion to stop the recently issued changes to
perinatal quality care collaboratives, supTitle X from going into effect.
port for efforts to reduce racial and ethnic

Medical News: What key
clinical areas were explored
during the recent meeting?

Dr. Hollier: The trifecta clinical
seminars covered topics that are most
important to ACOG members, including endometriosis, genetics, substance use
disorder and trauma-informed care, and
DVT prophylaxis. This year we had a new
session, EdTalks, which were three powerful, 10-minute presentations followed
by a Q&A panel with the speakers. The
EdTalks topics covered financial models,
reproductive endocrinology and infertility, menopause, microbiomes, polycystic
ovary syndrome, the annual well-woman
visit, sterilization, and the environment.
This was all in addition to more than
700 scientific ePosters with cutting-edge
research in women’s health.

Medical News: Maternal
mortality rates have been
a big part of your efforts as
ACOG president, what are
your thoughts on improving
care?

Dr. Hollier: The United States is
the only developed country with a rising
maternal mortality rate. This has been
a tremendous impetus for change. My
Presidential Program at the meeting and
all of my presidential initiatives focused
on implementable solutions to eliminate
preventable maternal mortality. We are
seeing changes in the leading causes of
maternal mortality. With reductions in
pregnancy-related deaths due to hemorrhage and hypertension, we are seeing
that cardiovascular disease and cardiomyopathy are the leading causes.
Fortunately, we know from maternal mortality review committees in states
across the country that as many as 60
percent of maternal deaths are preventable. Because of the important role of
cardiovascular disease in maternal mortality, a large part of my presidency was
dedicated to updating ACOG’s clinical
guidance on pregnancy and heart disease.
Cardiovascular disease and cardiomyopathy account for about 1 in 4 maternal
deaths and disproportionately affect black
women. I am proud to say that the dedicated, multidisciplinary members of my
presidential task force completed comprehensive guidance on this topic that covers
screening, diagnosis and management of
cardiovascular disease in pregnancy and
the new Practice Bulletin was released
during the annual meeting.
ACOG members have also been
working hard across the country to promote a culture of safety in hospitals,
particularly in labor and delivery units.
With the infrastructure and support
provided by AIM, hospitals are implementing standardized, evidence-based
practices that reduce complications and
improve women’s outcomes. AIM is a
national data-driven maternal safety and
quality improvement initiative to reduce

maternal mortality and severe morbidity. Over the last several years, and with
an additional $10 million grant from the
Health Resources and Services Administration, the AIM program has grown and
now enrolled 26 states … and counting.
Our goal is to have participation from all
50 states, and I am confident that we will
do it.

Medical News: During the
national meeting, you passed
the gavel to Dr. Anderson.
Could you share some
reflections on your time
leading this organization over
the past year?

Dr. Hollier: ACOG has made
incredible progress on behalf of patients
and our members in just one short year.
Our committees have created and updated
our clinical guidance. We’ve developed
and created programs and education that
help our members implement our Practice Bulletins and Committee Opinions
in their clinics and in hospitals. ACOG
members have taken to the Hill and gone
to their state legislatures to ensure the
leading voices of women’s healthcare are
heard and influence legislative and regulatory policies. It’s been a year of accomplishment, and I am so proud to have
handed the gavel to Dr. Ted Anderson as
our 70th president of ACOG.
I’m really proud of the advocacy
work we’ve done with our partners to get
better data on the causes and contributing
factors to maternal mortality. We recently
celebrated the passage of the Preventing
Maternal Deaths Act, which was subsequently signed into law in December.
ACOG staff, along with our dedicated
members, spent nearly 10 years advocating for this important legislation that will
now ensure funding and infrastructure for
state-based maternal mortality committees. I’m thrilled that I could help usher
this bill across the finish line and that it
became law during my tenure.
To help ensure that advocacy holds
a central role in our organization and our
specialty, I created the ACOG Annual
Junior Fellow College Advisory Council Advocacy Leadership Training program. This innovative and immersive
program offers exclusive opportunities
and experiences to our next generation of
ob-gyn leaders, our JF chairs.
We’ve also invested in our Levels of
Maternal Care program this year. The
initial guidelines were developed and
published in 2015 and were designed to
promote collaboration among maternal
facilities and healthcare providers with
the goal that pregnant women receive
care at a facility appropriate for their
risk. ACOG and the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine (SMFM) have worked
together to develop and pilot the levels of
maternal care verification program. The
lessons learned from the pilot were published this year.
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MAY 2019

>

7

Searching for Ways to Lighten a
Financial Load

Healthcare Tuition Costs Weigh Heavily on Many Healthcare Students
By CINDY WOLFF

The balance sits out there like a distant, dark cloud. It rumbles every so often
to remind registered nurse Cynthia Barger
that while she reached her goal of becoming
a nurse, there’s a price to pay.
It prevents her from buying a house. It

stops her from taking a real vacation. She
bought a car, but she had to agree to a high
interest rate because her credit report shows
a student loan debt of around $70,000.
That includes tuition for a master’s degree
in nursing education that she recently completed in hopes of improving her salary.
And for medical students, the final bill

for an education is at least double if not triple for some private universities. Students at
the University of Tennessee Health Science
Center (UTHSC) College of Medicine pay
an average of $195,000 to complete their
program.
It’s an issue that received national
attention recently when it was reported that

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Kenneth Langone, co-founder of Home
Depot and chairman of the board of trustees at New York University along with his
wife, Elaine, donated $100 million toward
making NYU tuition free for medical students. He raised an additional $350 million
to make NYU School of Medicine tuitionfree for years to come.
“I think it’s fantastic,” said Scott
Strome, MD, Executive Dean of the College of Medicine at UTHSC. Dr. Strome
said he’s passionate about finding ways to
help reduce student
debt at UTHSC as
he did while working at the University of Maryland
where he was a
professor and chair
of the Department
of Otorhinolaryngology. He said
Maryland UniverScott Strome
sity was able to raise
approximately $8
million in 18 months to go toward reducing
costs for students.
After NYU’s decision, many in the
industry are waiting to see if other prominent universities will follow. Dr. Strome
said if that happens, the paradigm for state
schools will change.
“While a debt-free system is the right
thing to do for our students, we need to do
it in a responsible manner to pay for all the
things medical schools need to be able to
function,” he said.
It also could change some of the pros
students consider when deciding on a
school.
“Typically students might consider
going to a state school system to be closer
to family and because usually tuition is significantly less for an in-state student,” Dr.
Strome said. If students can go to private
medical schools with zero tuition, state
schools might not look so attractive.”
But that doesn’t mean schools like
UTHSC won’t fill its classrooms with budding doctors. The university offers scholarships, including a few large merit-based
ones and some need-based scholarships for
each class.
“We’ve seen an increase in medical
school debt over the last two to three years,
but with a greater increase in the percentage of our students receiving scholarships,”
Dr. Strome said. “Our latest data shows
that over 90 percent of our students receive
some scholarship funding.”
Students also have the option to apply
for a full scholarship through the Army,
Navy or Air Force Health Professions Scholarship Program, which covers all tuition and
required fees including textbooks or equipment needed for study. Students all receive
a monthly allowance for living expenses.
As part of the program, once they gradu(CONTINUED ON PAGE 15)

8

>

MAY 2019

memphismedicalnews

.com

Reimagining Residency

AMA’s Next Push in Transforming Physician Training
By CINDY SANDERS

In 2013, the American Medical Association (AMA) announced an ambitious
effort to accelerate change in medical education. Starting with 11 founding medical schools on a mission to better prepare
physicians to meet the future of medicine,
the initiative has now grown to 37 participating schools. Yet, residency training has
not mirrored those transformations … until
now.
The AMA recently launched a fiveyear, $15 million Reimagining Residency
grant program to rethink how graduate medical education (GME) could best
address the workforce needs of the current and future healthcare system, better
support physician well-being and enhance
preparedness to practice. It’s the next phase
in the AMA’s quest to transform physician
training.
“When we really looked deeply at the
changes being made in medical schools,
we realized we’ve brought these now
thousands of students through changes in
undergraduate medical education (UME)
but hadn’t changed residency,” said Susan
Skochelak, MD, group vice president for
Medical Education with the AMA and the
driving force behind efforts to transform
the way physicians learn and train to meet

the demands of a rapidly evolving healthcare system.
Skochelak said the first cohort of students who benefitted from curricular innovations are now interns. “Each subsequent
year, there will be thousands more students
coming through these new med school programs,” she pointed out. Skochelak said
the concern was there would be an implicit
message that the training they undertook
during medical school didn’t really matter
if they arrived at residency only to find no

disruption in the status quo.
“The next logical step is to say it’s a
continuum of training and to bring these
same principles and concepts of education forward to residency,” explained
Skochelak. “We want to make a better
handoff – a better connection – from medical school to residency in terms of learning
approach.”
She added practitioners must take
the important new concepts that are part
of health system science and understand

how quality, safety and patient-centered
care are implemented in daily operations
to ensure readiness for practice. Skochelak
continued, “We want to support a positive
learning environment … not just for students but for faculty and staff, as well.”
Building off the successful model used
to transform UME, Skochelak said those
chosen for the new residency grant funding
will join an AMA-convened consortium.
“The best way, we’ve proven, to accelerate
the change is to bring people together in a
community of innovation,” she explained.
The group will evaluate successes and lessons learned and work together to broadly
disseminate successful initiatives to residency training programs across the country.
In late 2018, the AMA announced the
new program. At the beginning of this year,
the organization put out a call for innovative proposals with a bold vision to promote
systemic change in GME with Letters of
Intent due Feb. 1, 2019. Last month, that
large pool was narrowed down to 30 applicants who have been asked to submit full
proposals. Skochelak said she anticipates
eight will be selected for funding with the
announcement coming in June at the 2019
AMA Annual Meeting in Chicago.
The response has been tremendous.

the nursing profession. The event was
conducted by Pamela Haskins, publisher
of the Memphis Medical News.
“A professor at one time said that we
need a super nurse, a nurse who can do
anything – one who can go from working
on the GI tract to delivering babies,” Likes
said. “We don’t expect physicians to do
that. It takes a special person to do each
job.”
Despite these changes, the roundtable
participants all agreed one key element
has remained the same – nurses are at the
forefront of patient care and serve as an
advocate for the patient.
Held in conjunction with National
Nurses Week, the roundtable included
discussion of the high turnover of nurses
in the Memphis area, workplace safety
issues, the national shortage of nurses in
a clinical and academic setting, the need
for more nurses at an executive level and
the restrictions on nurse practitioners in
Tennessee.
Along with Likes, the other three
participants in the roundtable discussion
were:
Carla Kirkland, family nurse practitioner, Saint Francis Hospital, and district
1 president of the Tennessee Nurses Association,
Blanche F. Petty, women’s health
nurse practitioner, McDonald Murrman
Center for Wellness and Health,
Cathy Stepter, associate professor
and graduate program chair, Baptist College of Health Sciences

High Turnover

According to a recent study by NSI
Nursing Solutions, a national nurse placement company, the average hospital nurse
turnover rate in 2017 was 18.2 percent.
Thirty-three percent of nurses who leave
their jobs do so within the first two years.
It was the highest recorded turnover
in the healthcare industry in almost a
decade.
All four participants agreed that
10

>

MAY 2019

nurse turnover is a big concern. Blanche
Petty, of McDonald Murrman, said many
nurses are forced to do more because of
budget cuts and advancements in technology, and as a result become a product of
nurse burnout.
“More and more falls on the nurses,”
Petty said. “PCAs get cut and nurses have
to fill in the gaps. As a result, they get
burned out and leave.”
She recalled an experience two
decades ago when she was a recent graduate from nursing school and became a
labor and delivery nurse in a hospital. She
was required to attend a six-week, highrisk obstetrics course to learn how to handle certain situations in the hospital. She
said this course was a valuable resource,
and similar courses could help onboard
nurses right out of nursing school.
“It can be an intimidating atmosphere when you get out of school and this
course, as well as several charge nurses,
helped me understand what to expect

working in a high-risk environment,”
Petty said. “They don’t do this anymore,
and it was so helpful to me at the time as a
nurse right out of school.”
Cathy Stepter with Baptist College of
Health Sciences said some turnover could
be prevented if residency programs were
offered for nurses.
“We need to support our nurses in
their first year of practice,” Stepter said.
“These nurses are novices coming in
and need to be onboarded correctly. We
need nurses ready, and there is a learning
curve.”

Workplace Safety

Carla Kirkland of the Tennessee
Nurses Association (TNA) said a key issue
facing nurses in the state is workplace violence, from both patients and co-workers.
Last year a patient was arrested for
attacking a nurse practitioner and psychiatric nurse at two different Memphis-area
hospitals.

According to Kirkland, this type of
violence is on the rise.
Likes said some work is being done on
a local level to tackle the issue. Last year,
UTHSC was awarded a $16,000 grant
from Tennessee Promise, a state scholarship and mentoring program, in collaboration with Regional One Health, to train
nurses to handle and defuse crisis situations in hospitals and other healthcare settings. The grant funds crisis management
instructor training for six staff members at
Regional One Health and two college of
nursing faculty members on how to recognize escalating behavior and defuse potentially hostile situations. The training takes
place in the classroom and in simulation
settings with actors portraying patients in
the new UTHSC Center for Healthcare
Improvement and Patient Simulation,
which opened last year.
“Six hundred nurses have participated in the de-escalation training, which
will, hopefully, assist in retention and
avoid burnout,” Likes said. “The program
is still ongoing, and we are in the process
of measuring the outcomes.”

Nurse Shortage

All nurse participants stressed the
need for more nurses in both a clinical
and academic setting in the Mid-South.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that 1.1 million additional nurses are
needed to avoid a further nurse shortage
nationwide.
“There is a gap in the profession,”
Likes said. “Many older nurses aren’t
working in the field anymore. There
aren’t enough experienced nurses who
can onboard a novice nurse.”
Stepter said salaries must increase
in order to incentivize nurses. She thinks
some nurses in the Memphis area choose
to leave an employer to become a travel
nurse – a nurse hired to work in a specific location for a limited amount of time
– and then work locally because the pay
is higher. The fact they are travel nurses
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 11)

Nursing Profession’s Evolving Role, continued from page 10
allows them the opportunity to
make additional money when
Blanche Foshee Petty
working locally “because
of the stipends and perks.”
“We need to pay nurses
Title -- Women’s Health Nurse
not to travel,” she said.
Practitioner, McDonald Murrman
Likes and Stepter said the value
Center for Wellness and Health.
of nursing is difficult for hospitals to quantify because nursBirthplace – Memphis, Tennessee.
ing isn’t a billable profession.
(Grew up in Southaven, Mississippi.)
“Nursing is a hidden cost
at hospitals,” Stepter said.
Credentials, Nursing School – BSN,
“Many variables demonstrate
Baptist College of Health Sciences;
that we have better outcomes
MSN, University of Cincinnati. WHNPwith nurses, and their salaries
BC
should reflect that.”
Likes and Stepter said
Nursing Experience – 26 yrs OB/gyn,
there is a need for more nurse
Regional One, Baptist and Methodist;
faculty at colleges and unifive years at McDonald Murrmann.
versities. They agreed that
universities are turning away
potential nursing students
because there aren’t enough
nurses with advanced degrees
nationwide who can teach.
“We are turning nursing
students away who are applying,” Likes said. “We had 250
applicants for our BSN acceleration profor women and men with families.
gram this past year, and we could only
“It’s a great career choice,” Likes
accept 60.”
said. “The hours are consistent, and it’s
Additionally, Likes said nursing salaa good lifestyle for parents. Many women
ries are higher in a clinical setting than in
wait until later in life to teach, and they
an academic one, which can deter some
are in an academic setting for only 10 to
nurses from pursuing advanced degrees.
15 years before retiring.”
“We don’t expose academia as a
career choice for nurses,” Stepter said.
More Nurse Executives
“Teaching is very different from dealing
Several participants emphasized the
with patients. The impact of good faculty
need for more nurse executives in area
makes a big difference to students at a
hospitals. Likes said nurses directly impact
time when they are stressed. We need to
the health of patients and are advocates
encourage nurses to look at academia as
for them, so they should be making decian option. We need people at all levels.”
sions that impact patients on an executive
Likes said it’s a common misconceplevel.
tion that the academic field isn’t a good fit
“Nurses aren’t at the table making

decisions at organizations,” Likes said. “If
you look at a hospital’s executive board,
only one or two nurses are represented.
We need more nurses on an executive
level.”

Advanced Nurse Practitioners

According to the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, 22 U.S. states
have approved nurse practitioners to
practice independently. This means they
are allowed to assess, diagnose, interpret
diagnostic tests and prescribe medications independently. Nurse practitioners
must practice under the supervision of a
licensed physician in Tennessee.
Kirkland, who is the statewide president-elect for the TNA, said there likely
will be legislation introduced to the state
legislature for nurse practitioners to practice independently in Tennessee in the
upcoming year.
“In my experience, nurse practitioners and physicians work together well
collaborating,” Kirkland said. “There are
plenty of patients to go around. We are
utilized to fill areas where there are staff

shortages.”
She emphasized that the
Coalition for Access to Care
in Tennessee, which is a TNA
multiple-advanced practice
registered organization, is
working to communicate with
physicians to come up with
a compromise and solution
to the many issues facing the
healthcare industry in Tennessee.
Stepter said there is
sometimes a knowledge gap
among physicians regarding an advanced practice
registered nurse’s duties and
understanding all of the new
certifications.
“There have been many
new certifications in advanced
nursing over the years, and
not every physician is well
versed in them,” Stepter said.
“Physicians and leadership
don’t always understand the
full scope of the nurse practitioner.”
All of the roundtable participants said
patients in rural areas in the state don’t
have quality access to care. Kirkland said
the state restrictions on nurse practitioners
restrict access to patients in rural areas
because they cannot find a collaborating
physician to assist them.
“Many rural clinics are closing,
and patients from those areas are using
the emergency room for their healthcare,” Kirkland said. “We can be an asset
in those rural areas.”

Call Eddie Shaw at
901-869-2624
for more information.

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11

St. Jude Gene Therapy Cures Babies
with ‘Bubble Boy’ Disease
ongoing clinical trial of
infants newly diagnosed with
SCID-X1, the most common
type of SCID, a rare disorder that commonly became
known as “bubble boy disease.”
The disorder received
widespread public attention
in 2001 with the release of
the movie Bubble Boy which
was inspired by the 1976 film
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.
With Jake Gyllenhaal staring in the title role, Bubble
Boy was a comedy – something that seemed strange to
many then as well as now.
In fact, one critic wrote at
the time, “If you take it seriously, you’ll find yourself hating this movie. Just think
of Bubble Boy, as the kind
of movie that isn’t supposed
to be watched with a heavy
heart.”
The St. Jude announcement reported that ten infants
have received the experimental therapy. It was developed
in research led by the late
Brian Sorrentino, MD, of
the St. Jude Department of
Hematology. Dr. Sorrentino,
who was the senior author, died after the
manuscript was submitted for publication.

Ewelina Mamcarz

Brian Sorrentino

The report stated that UCSF played an
instrumental role in the St. Jude protocol

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Gene therapy developed at St. Jude
Children’s Research Hospital has cured
infants born with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID-X1)
according to a report released by the hospital.
The life-threatening genetic disorder
is sometimes called “bubble boy disease.”
The name is a reference to measures taken
to protect patients, who are born with little or no immune protection. Untreated,
patients usually die early in life.
In the hospital’s news release, Ewelina
Mamcarz, MD, of the St. Jude Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation
and Cellular Therapy, revealed that the
children are producing functional immune
cells, including T cells, B cells and natural
killer (NK) cells, for the first time.
These patients, now toddlers, are
responding to vaccinations and have
immune systems to make all the immune
cells they need for protection from infections as they explore the world and live
normal lives. This is a first for patients
with SCID-X1, Dr. Mamcarz said.
The results were published in the
April 18 issue of the New England Journal of
Medicine. According to the announcement,
the patients were treated at St. Jude and
UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in San
Francisco with gene therapy produced
in the Children’s GMP, LLC, a Good
Manufacturing Practice facility located in
Memphis on the St. Jude campus.
The children were enrolled in an

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When Dr. Giddens was in his residency, the field was 75 to 80 percent
male. Today female physicians are in the
majority, he said. The gender makeup at
MOGA is about 50-50.
“I certainly think that’s the wave of
the future, that the OB-GYN field is predominantly female,” he said. “When I first
started practicing, I think me being male
was neither a positive nor a negative with
patients. I think there are a lot of women
now who would prefer to see a woman,
but I’m at a stage in my career where I
see a lot of my patients’ daughters. That’s
kind of nice because they trust me and
they convey their trust to their daughters.”
Seven years after obstetrics residents
Andrea and Aric Giddens met, fell in love
and got married after teaming up for an
emergency C-section in 1991, that same
patient walked into MOGA for OB care,
only this time not in such distress. The

patient relayed the story of her emergency
C-section delivery of her first baby at The
Med and indicated she wanted to have a
natural delivery with no drama. So Dr.
Andrea got the patient’s medical records,
stared hard at them and then handed
them to Dr. Aric and said, “Look at this.”
It was the same patient.
“The lady had no idea who delivered
her first baby because the residents’ names
were not recorded on the birth certificates;
only the staff doctor’s was,” Dr. Aric said.
“So we told the patient, ‘Hey, we’ve got a
good story for you.’ She was really amazed,
she delivered again and she’s been our
patient ever since. In 2016 we even got to see
her son we had delivered 25 years earlier.
“Now, every time she sees my wife
she says ‘I’m the reason you got married.’
We’re just amazed at the odds that this
lady found us and had no idea, but it really
happened.”

Searching for Ways, continued from page 8
ate, the students are required to serve in the
military for the same number of years as it
took for them to complete medical school.
There is a similar program available
to students who are willing to work for the
National Health Service Corps. The federal
program pays for medical and dental school
in return for an agreement by the student
to work in a rural area for the same time
period it took them to earn their degree.
The program was created to assist rural
areas around the country that are suffering
from a lack of primary care doctors.
There are also programs such as the
Tennessee Rural Partnership and the Tennessee State Loan Repayment Program
that offer primary care physicians stipends
in residency that can be used to pay loans,
in exchange for a commitment to practice
in rural health clinics.
Strome said the university is looking
at other ways to decrease ancillary costs

for students, such as offering financial literacy programs to help them manage their
money. Also, the university is studying how
to add affordable housing to the campus.
As for Barger, she never wanted to be
a doctor. It wasn’t just the expense, but she
learned to love what nurses do while watching them attend a friend of hers. Barger
works as an intensive care unit nurse at St.
Jude Children’s Research Hospital, which
has a tuition-reimbursement program that
she’s using to help with her master’s degree
loan. But, she still owes close to $70,000 in
student loans.
She knows of other nurses who carry
similar debts – or more – who have resigned
themselves to pay the minimum payment
on the loan for the rest of their lives.
“They’ll never get it paid off like that
because of the interest,” Barger said. “I
want it to be gone. My hope is to pay it off
in five years.”

We have healthcare law

DOWN
SCIENCE
to a

Reimagining Residency, continued from page 9
“We had more than 250 entities write Letters of Intent,” Skochelak noted, adding the
entries represented more than 300 organizations including
state medical societies, specialty societies, consortiums,
nonprofits and others. “We’re really
very intrigued with
the fact that the
response with the
Letters of Intent
was broader than
Susan Skochelak
just traditional residency programs. It
says that people are really interested and
excited to move forward with innovation
and change,” she added.
Skochelak said about 20 percent of
the Letters of Intent addressed physician
burnout. Other workforce issues including
addressing provider shortages and ideas
tied to the impact of social determinants
were also recurring themes.
MEMPHISMEDICALNEWS

.COM

The eight proposals selected will
share in the $15 million set aside to fund
the initiative and will be divided up over
five years. Like the medical school programming, Skochelak anticipates there
will be a year of planning prior to implementation with these new residency
learners followed over subsequent years.
After selection, the eight institutional
partners receiving grants will meet to
agree upon standardized criteria for student assessment, resident selection procedures, onboarding and transitions, core
curriculum in health systems science and
common evaluation standards to measure
performance.
No matter which eight are ultimately
chosen, Skochelak said she is excited about
the depth and breadth of ideas and the
response from the larger medical community. “Clearly, it indicates we’re in a climate
where people know we can improve and do
better, and they want to partner with others
who can really help them reimagine residency,” she concluded.

UTHSC To Award 874
Degrees During Spring
Commencement
The University of Tennessee Health
Science Center (UTHSC) will award 874
degrees to new healthcare professionals during its spring commencement
ceremonies scheduled throughout the
month of May.
Each of the six colleges at UTHSC
will hold a ceremony. The graduates
include 119 from the College of Dentistry, 43 from the College of Graduate
Health Sciences, 268 from the College
of Health Professions, 158 from the College of Medicine, 99 from the College
of Nursing, and 187 from the College
of Pharmacy. UTHSC’s Chancellor Steve
Schwab, MD, will confer the degrees.

Engbretson Center for Women and
the work of its three providers.
Dr. Malone graduated from the University of Tennessee College of Medicine
at Memphis in 2007. She completed her OBGYN residency training at the
University of Tennessee College of Medicine in 2011. She is a member of IHI
Committee Baptist Women’s Hospital here in Memphis.
Dr. Engbretson has practiced obstetrics and gynecology in the Memphis
area since 2007. She is in private practice but also focuses on underserved
neighborhoods in the Memphis area via the Morning Center, a mobile
maternity unity providing charitable prenatal care.

PHOTO COURTESY ST. BALDRICK’S FOUNDATION

HealthChoice, a Memphis-based
physician hospital organization (PHO),
has named George
Wortham, MD, to replace outgoing president and CEO Mitch
Graves, who will
serve as chief executive of West Cancer
Center & Research
Institute.
HealthChoice’s George Wortham
board of governors
approved the appointment last month. Dr. Wortham is
a 20-plus-year member of MetroCare
Physicians, an independent physician
association that assists practices in reshaping the delivery of healthcare in the
Memphis area and helping transform the
healthcare system locally, from payments
for procedures and sickness to value and
outcomes. He has most recently served
as CEO of the association since 2014.
“Dr. Wortham brings a wealth of
experience and know-how given his
30-year career in obstetrics and gynecology, his leadership with MetroCare
Physicians, and his longtime relationships with HealthChoice, Methodist Le

CONSOLIDATED MEDICAL
PRACTICES OF MEMPHIS

Bonheur Healthcare and local insurance
providers,” said Carter Towne, MD,
board chairman.
A Vanderbilt University alumnus,
Dr. Wortham completed his post-graduate medical education and residency at
the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center in Memphis. Dr. Wortham
assumed his new position May 1.
HealthChoice is joint venture between Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare and MetroCare Physicians.

Kathleen Behnke, FNP, has joined the Engbretson Center for Women as our
nurse practitioner and will offer personalized care including a wide range
of in-offi ce patient care including well woman exams, and pre and postnatal care. Behnke received her Master’s of Science in Nursing from the
University of Tennessee Health Science Center in 2008.

Volunteers lose their hair at a St. Baldrick’s Foundation head shaving event.

Shaved Heads Result in Fellowship Grants
The St. Baldrick’s Foundation has awarded a $175,612 fellowship grant to St.
Jude Children’s Research Hospital and a $5,000 Summer Fellowship grant to the
University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC).
St. Baldrick’s is a not-for-profit organization based in Monrovia, California, and
the nation’s largest private funder of childhood cancer research grants.
Volunteers went bald last month at various St. Baldrick’s head-shaving events
across the nation – including Tennessee – to help raise funds now going to support
the next generation of pediatric oncologists.
Dr. Lisa Force, at St. Jude and St. Baldrick’s Fellowship awardee, will determine
what the best interventions are to improve outcomes for children and adolescents
with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). She will take into consideration the major
disparities between countries in access to optimal treatment, early abandonment of
therapy despite the potential for a cure, and availability of quality supportive care.
Dr. Susan Miranda, at UTHSC and a St. Baldrick’s Summer Fellow, will have a
medical student train in her lab to learn and assist in understanding the molecular
mechanisms for estrogen silencing in osteosarcomas. It is estimated that 800 children will be diagnosed with osteosarcoma and it is thought that sex hormones play
a role in the onset of the disease, as the cancer develops at the time of puberty.

For more information visit our website:
MedicalOfMemphis.com or call 901.261.0700
MAY 2019

>

17

GrandRounds
Methodist Healthcare
Foundation President Retires
Paula Jacobson, who served as
president of the Methodist Healthcare
Foundation for 18
years, has retired.
Jacobson,
who
joined Methodist in
2000, has overseen
fundraising
activities that support and
strengthen clinical,
research, and eduPaula Jacobson
cational
programs
for Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare
(MLH).
Jacobson, who retired last month,
helped launch the Methodist Hospice
Residence, the Comprehensive Sickle
Cell Center and the Center of Excellence for Faith and Health at Methodist University Hospital. She also spearheaded the fundraising campaign for
the new Shorb Tower at Methodist University Hospital, and coordinated the
system’s 100th birthday celebration.
“Paula’s fundraising successes have
been essential to our organization’s ability to fulfill our mission,” said Michael Ugwueke, MLH CEO. “Paula will certainly
be remembered for the relationships she
fostered, the vision she and the Methodist Healthcare Foundation board set for
philanthropy, and for her commitment to
ensure MLH is able to provide care to all,
regardless of ability to pay.”

Mitch Graves Named CEO of
West Cancer Center
Mitch Graves, who has more than
30 years in leadership positions with
Methodist Le Bonheur
Healthcare
(MLH), began this
month as the new
Chief Executive Officer of West Cancer
Center & Research
Institute.
As
CEO
of
MItch Graves
HealthChoice, LLC,
a joint venture between Methodist Le
Bonheur Healthcare and MetroCare
Physicians, Graves was responsible for
125,000 patients with the creation of an
Accounstable Care Organization that
contracted with major payers including,
Medicare, Cigna and United Healthcare- managing over $750 million in
medical spend while improving quality,
patient’s health and experience.
Before his tenure with HealthChoice, Graves was president and CEO
of Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare’s
Affiliated Services Division for eight
years. The Affiliated Services Division
was comprised of surgery centers, diagnostic centers, minor med and urgent
care centers, and sleep centers. This
division also included Alliance Health
Services which provides home care,
hospice, and home medical equipment.

18

>

MAY 2019

Prior to being division president,
Graves was Methodist’s Corporate Director of Finance.
Graves serves on the Church Health
Center’s finance committee, is board
vice-chairman for Memphis Light Gas
and Water and board vice president
of the Economic Club of Memphis and
serves as trustee for Christian Brothers
University (CBU). On a national level,
he is a member of United Healthcare’s
Executive Advisory Council and Cigna’s
National Health Care Advisory Council.

HealthLink International
Opens Memphis Facility
HealthLink International, a ‘total
solutions provider’ for companies active
in the medical device and human tissue
markets, has opened a medical device
facility in Memphis a t 3655 Knight Road.
The new warehouse facility includes
108,500 square feet and has 32 employees
.The facility is FDA-registered, ISO-13485
certified, and temperature-controlled.
“We outgrew our previous warehousing space and needed something
much bigger,” says Sebastiaan de Kok,
Operations Director. “The decision to
stay in Memphis as we grew was easy.
The support from the community and
the growth potential in Memphis played
a big part in that decision.”
Headquartered in the Netherlands,
HealthLink has been in business since
2005.

Annual ‘Ride for Life’ Bike
Tour Set for June 23
The eighth Annual ‘Ride for Life’
(for Organ & Tissue Donation Awareness) is scheduled 7 am Sunday, June 23
at Memorial Park, 5668 Poplar Ave.
The 25-mile ride is a non-competitive, family-friendly, biking tour through
East Memphis and Midtown designed to
encourage health and wellness and underscore the need for Mid-Southerners
to register as organ and tissue donors.
Event registration includes SAG
support, breakfast by the Crepe Maker
and Say Cheese, T-shirt, finisher medal
and post-ride party. Those interested in event details should visit www.
MidsouthtransplantRFL.racesonline.
com or www.midsouthtransplant.org.

UTHSC Ranked Among
Top 10 Safest Colleges in
America
The University of Tennessee Health
Science Center (UTHSC) has been
ranked in the Top 10 among the 2019
Safest Colleges in America, according
to a list released by the National Council
for Home Safety and Security (NCHSS).
The organization compiled the list
using data from law enforcement and
FBI crime reports. It looked at 490 colleges, excluding those with fewer than
1,000 students and those that did not
submit crime reports to the FBI. Two

variables were considered, the crime
rates and the police adequacy for the
size of the campus.
UTHSC, which ranked at ninth on the
list, is currently in the midst of a$30 million-plus security improvement program.
These include video security technology,
wireless and keyless access for all buildings, and a new Emergency Operations
Center that will monitor security on campus and in the Memphis Medical District.
More than 3,500 cameras, 500 access-controlled doors, and 3,000 wireless door locks will be installed in three
phases installed. Keyless entry to buildings will allow exterior doors to have
automatic lockdown capabilities in the
event of an active threat.
UTHSC is working with the Memphis
Police Department’s Real Time Crime
Center to have access to video in the university’s buildings, on campus, and within
the Memphis Medical District, where the
university’s cameras are located. New
patrol vehicles have been added and the
existing fleet has been updated.

Methodist Le Bonheur
Healthcare Labs Earn
Accreditation
The laboratories at Methodist Le
Bonheur Healthcare (MLH) have been
awarded reaccreditation from the College of American Pathologists (CAP).
The system of laboratories at MLH
includes its five adult hospitals and Le
Bonheur Children’s Hospital, as well as
other providers such as affiliated physicians offices, surgery centers, and other
outside services. Mahul Amin, MD, is
chairman of pathology for MLH.
The U.S. federal government recognizes the CAP Laboratory Accreditation
Program, begun in the early 1960s, as being equal-to or more-stringent-than the
government’s own inspection program.
During the CAP accreditation process inspectors examine the laboratory’s
records and quality control of procedures for the preceding two years. CAP
inspectors also examine laboratory staff
qualifications, equipment, facilities, safety
program and record, and overall management.

UTHSC Selects Woods as
Addiction Science Medical
Director

John B. Woods, MD, has been
named medical director for the Center for
Addiction Science at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC).
A graduate of the UTHSC College
of Medicine, Dr. Woods also serves as
an assistant professor in the College of
Medicine. Prior to joining the university,
Dr. Woods practiced internal medicine for
12 years in Jackson, Tennessee, with the
largest multispecialty group in the state.
He also started and owned a primary care
practice in Jackson, worked in residential
addiction treatment in Nashville, and was

the medical director for an intensive outpatient program in Shelby County.
Dr. Woods said the new position
affords him an opportunity to have a
major impact on addiction in Tennessee. He said he thinks the backing of the
university reduces the stigma surrounding addiction and treatment.
The Center for Addiction Science
was launched in the College of Medicine to combat the addiction epidemic
in Tennessee. In 2016, it was named the
first Center of Excellence in Addiction
Medicine in the country by The Addiction Medicine Foundation, now the
American College of Academic Addiction Medicine.

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19

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